Questions and answers about English usage

Subject-verb agreement

A reader sent me the following sentences and asked if the underlined words are the subjects. They are, and here's why:

1. Neither of my two suitcases is adequate for this trip.

"Neither" means "not this one and not that one." "of my two suitcases" is just a prepositional phrase, explaining what "neither" means, but a prepositional phrase can't be the subject. (However, as we'll see, it can So when "neither" refers to two, the subject has to be singular.

2. Neither the teacher nor the students seem to understand this assignment.

Here, "neither" introduces two possible subjects, "teacher" and "students." In this case, the subject is either singular (teacher) or plural (students). In this case, the verb has to agree with the closer of the two possible subjects...in this case, "students." So "seem" is the correct verb form.

3. Some of the grain has gone bad.

"Some" can be singular or plural depending on the number of the noun in the prepositional phrase that follows it. "Grain" is singular, so the verb is "has gone." But if we wrote "Some of the students ___ gone home," the verb would be "have," to agree with "students."

4. John or his brother is going to be responsible for this.

The subject is "John" or "brother," but not both. Each is singular. So a singular subject takes a singular verb.

5. Has either my father or my brothers made a down payment on the house?

Like #2, the verb agrees with the closer noun, which in this case is the singular, "father." Turn it around, and the verb is plural: "Have either my brothers or my father made a down payment on this house?"

6. A few of the students are doing so well they can skip the next course.

"Few" is plural, so the verb is "are." But here are some variations:

"One of the students is doing so well that he or she can skip the next course." (If we know that the student is male or female, however, we can use just the right pronoun.)